BBC reports that Thaumoctopus mimicus has been spotted imitating the peacock or zebra sole, poisonous fish also found in the waters off Indonesia. Our local Director of the Center for Applied biodiversity Informatics at the California Academy of Sciences suggests the clever little guy only has to be convincing for a second: "While the mimic octopus’s imitation of flatfish is far from perfect, it may be ‘good enough’ to fool predators where it lives… In the time it takes a predator to do a double take, the octopus may be able to get away," according to Dr. Healy Hamilton.

Click the photo for the BBC article, with a little video snippet of authentic octopus-imitating-flatfish action.

Tony Buser (http://tonybuser.com) has come up with a lovely idea for web-based (cloud-based?) 3D CAD design. From his site: “I call it CloudSCAD – it’s OpenSCAD for the web. It lets you write, share, mashup[sic], and customize parametric 3D models using the OpenSCAD scripting language all within the browser and doesn’t require anything to be installed locally.” This idea has already caused a huge surge of interest in the geeky community which is interested in 3D printing and other methods of rapid prototyping. Tony’s post got a very excited response form the rapid prototyping croup’s luminary oracles, including Forrest Higgs, Giles Bathgate, Erik de Bruijn and Nicholas C Lewis (who admitted to thinking along the same lines). Everyone seemed to think this was a killer app in the making.

My wife and I stood/sat next to a nice couple at the Grateful Dead show Saturday night and asked them over after the show (we live a few blocks from Golden Gate Park). They and their two daughters kept us awake until 3AM, partly with charming diversions like this.

This is a star-nosed mole. Strictly speaking, this does not qualify as stuff I like, but it’s so interesting I can’t restrain myself. Only God could have the temerity to let something like this into the world, only to die of shame.